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6 The Psychology of Reading For Pleasure
6 The Psychology of Reading For Pleasure
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readingis a form of play. It is free that it is at root a play activity,and usually para-
Pleasure
activity standing outside ordinary life; it telic, that is, pursued for its own sake (Apter,
absorbs the player completely, is unproductive, 1979). In this study,ludic readersare defined as
and takes place within circumscribedlimits of those who read at least a book a week for plea-
place and time (Caillois, 1961; Huizinga, 1938/ sure and relaxation;of course, many ludic read-
1950). Ludic reading (from the Latin ludo, I ers-and certainly the 33 recruited for this
play: Stephenson, 1964) is therefore a useful study- read a great deal more thanthat.
descriptor of pleasure reading, reminding one Any kind of readingmattercan serve as the
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For the 129 students, mean RCS was 221 time (Table1) suggests that these variablesmay
(SD = 73); their raw reading speed was 238 be indirectlytappingthe strengthof the motives
words per minute (WPM). This figure is in to engage in and to continue ludic reading,
good agreement with college student reading which is most often book reading.
ratesreportedelsewhere (Harris, 1968; Jackson
& McClelland, 1979). Many ludic readerswill, Conclusions.In any society in which read-
however, read considerably faster than 238 ing is a common and early-acquiredskill, it is
WPM, as shownby the RCS of 387 obtainedby not possible to carry out a study in which read-
the 33 ludic readers in the present study, and ing ability is manipulatedas the independent
their mean naturalreading speed of 412 WPM variable, while age, intelligence, and education
(Study2). are held constant.Accordingly,no causal infer-
ences can be drawn about the strong positive
Reading speed and ludic reading. Table 1 correlationsbetween readingspeed, book read-
presents the intercorrelationsof the 14 varia- ing time and quantity,and book readingmotiva-
bles. ReadingComprehensionSpeed correlates tion. Higher reading comprehension speeds
with more variables and at ratherhigher levels may be a preconditionfor ludic reading,or they
of significance than raw reading speed, indica- may developas a consequenceof it. For reading
ting that even the small correctionfor compre- instruction,it is clearly importantto determine
hension accuracy enhanced this measure's whether there is an RCS above which ludic
relationalfertility.RCS correlatedsignificantly reading usually develops, and below which it
with time spent reading books (r = .34, p < does not, and to throw more light on the direc-
.001) and numberof books read (r = .33, p < tion of the relations between reading compre-
.001). hension speed and ludic reading.
The near-zero correlations between RCS
and the measures of reading of magazines and Between-group differences
newspapersdo not supportthe view that these Table 2 gives means and standarddevia-
are preferredby slowerreaders;on the contrary, tions for the principal subject subgroups, and
newspaperand magazine reading appearto be for all subjectscombined. Thereare severalma-
unrelatedto readingability. jor findings. First, irrespectiveof careeror lan-
Book choice decision time, with one excep- guage differences, females spend more time
tion, generatedno significant correlationswith reading books than males; these differences
the other variables. On the other hand, its carry over to other readinghabit variables;and
operationalized analog, sorting time, related college males, of both language groups, read
significantly to the reading speed measures, to fewerbooks and for less time thanthe rest of the
book readingtime and quantity,andto the Frus- sample. The fastestreadersare the English uni-
trationIndex. versity females (RCS = 254), and the slowest
The FrustrationIndexis stronglycorrelated are the college Afrikaans males (175). The
with book reading time, but quite unrelatedto former read ludic books for longer every day
magazine and newspaper reading time. This (165 minutes)than the whole group (125 min),
may be interpretedto mean that newspaperand and the latterfor very much less time (53 min),
magazine readers are less dependent on their thus furthersupportingthe strong relations al-
reading matter than book readers, who feel ready noted between book readingand reading
readingdeprivationmore keenly and take more ability.
vigorous action to end it. Perhaps the Second, the FrustrationIndex is higher for
eighteenth-century critics were correct when those groups that spend more time reading
they comparednovel readingto tippling:Novels books, and lower for those who spend less time
are addictive, whereasnewspapersare not! The on books. Again, it is strikingthat heavy book-
fact that both the FrustrationIndex and reading readers seem to be more dependent on their
span are most strongly relatedto book reading readingthanthose who readbooks less.
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she usually read that promisedto be especially control for comprehension,because this would
enjoyable. To ensurethatthis criterionwas met, have created an attentional set incompatible
I asked subjectsto sample the first 50 pages of with ludic reading. Indeed, pleasure reading
each book until they had found threebooks "that withoutcomprehensionis scarcely conceivable,
you regardas offering the best reads you have so that each reader'senjoymentcan be seen as
had for some time."During intake, subjects as- evidence for adequatecomprehension.
signed an expected enjoyment rating to each Each subject participatedin two identical
book. The highest-rated was set aside for the laboratorysessions a day apart,the first for ha-
second, criterion, laboratorysession; the low- bituationand the second for datarecording.
est-ratedwas returnedto the subject;and the re-
mainingbook was used in the first session. Timing.In the laboratory,subjectslay with
their backs to an observationwindow, through
ReadingMood Questionnaires.The first of which page numberscould be noted, and beside
these, incorporatingthe Reading Habits Ques- a mirror which showed the unmistakableup-
tionnaire described in Study 1, was adminis- ward saccade that brought the subject's gaze
teredbefore the first laboratorysession; another from the bottomof a left-handpage to the top of
followed the second laboratorysession. In both, a right-handpage. Completionof a right-hand
readersassigned enjoyment ratings to various page was of course indicatedby the turningof a
kinds of readingexperience, anchoredto a "best page. Timing was based on readingstakenfrom
book"question: the digital counterof an Ampex 2200 16-chan-
nel tape recorder,and was subject to a noncu-
Thinkof themostenjoyablereadingexperience mulative maximum error of 6.2 sec per page.
you'vehad duringthe past year or two. Take The worst effect this inaccuracycould have had
yourtime, andwhenyoufeel ready,tell me the is if all the fastest pages were read 6.2 sec
titleof the book.Don'tanswertill youfeel sure
slower, and all the slowest 6.2 sec faster. The
youhaveidentifiedthe bookthatgaveyouyour effect of such a worst-casesituationon the data
mostenjoyablereadingexperience.
in Table3 would be to leave 11 of the 30 readers
Subjectswere then asked to recountan epi- with a flexibility ratio larger than 2, still sub-
sode they remembered especially vividly, to stantiallybetterthanthe .05 chance level.
which an enjoyment rating of 100% was as-
signed. The scale was elaboratedby asking sub-
jects to rate well-remembered passages in a Results and Discussion
very recently readbook, a book readunderdis-
tracting circumstances, and the three books Natural reading and reading
brought to the first laboratorysession. In this in the laboratory
way, generalizations about reading enjoyment In the laboratory, subjects had 11 elec-
were avoided, and reading pleasure was tied trodes affixed to their persons (see Figure 4 in
back to a subjectively unambiguousscale, an- Study 4), somewhat constraining movement,
chored to remembered episodes in specified and there was considerableintrusivenovelty in
books. the situation, such as TV cameras and white
noise. Under these circumstances,it seems un-
Procedure likely thatreaderswould regardeven the second
The page-by-page reading speed of the 33 of the two laboratoryreadingperiods as equiva-
ludic readerswas monitoredfor 30 minutesdur- lent to naturalreading.However,in the Reading
ing the second laboratorysession. Reading in Mood Questionnaireseach subjectwas asked to
the laboratorybegan a few lines before the point make a series of directcomparisonsbetweenhis
at which the trial reading of the subject'smost or her usual ludic readingexperiencesand read-
preferred book had stopped, usually at about ing in the laboratory,and resultsshowedno sig-
page 50. In this study no attemptwas made to nificant difference between the most enjoyable
Figure 2
Subject220: High speed, high variability
2000
1200-
- - LAWBATORY
MEAN
SPEED
40-0 MOST
LIKED
PA-
--GE - - pA F,
55 75 105
•5
iii.....
85 I I 95 I zzz 1li5
ii ii
Figure 3
Subject 112: High speed, low variability
1000
A----MEAN
A - .LABORATORY
600 =- = ? . '-- - -PEED["" - =
400- - - -MOST
LIKED
"PAGES
200
PAGE
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110
1956) or the New Readers(Fish, 1980). Of the Presentation. A two-digit random number
14, 11 were membersof the faculty of the Uni- was allocatedto each extract, and extractswere
versity of SouthAfrica (UNISA); 6 were female presentedto subjects in a randomnumbersse-
and 5 male, and 2 held PhD degrees. The 3 oth- quence, and anonymously. Here, anonymity
ers, 2 with PhDs, were middle-aged males on was necessary not-as in Richard'sfamous ex-
the facultyof the small Universityof PortEliza- ercise in practical criticism (1929)-to show
beth (UPE). that trained minds could unerringlydetect the
qualityof literariness,but to determinewhether
Materials both trained and untrained minds shared the
Though no manageable sample of written same ludic readingtastes. The extractswere ac-
materialscan claim to representthe universe of cordinglytyped, and the wordshe or she substi-
reading matter, 30 books were selected to re- tuted for giveaways like James Bond or Mrs.
flect the main dimensionsand categoriesof En- Marple. Three specimen extracts-the most
glish-language reading matter. The Reading preferred,least preferred,and one rankedmid-
Preference Test comprised short extractsfrom way between these extremes-together with a
these 30 books. Because of time constraints, list of the sources from which the extractswere
each extractwas limitedto 20 typewrittenlines. drawn are reproducedin AppendixesA and B.
The complete set of 30 extracts is available
Categories. The selection categories were from the author.
fiction/nonfiction, genre (in the sense of a cer-
tain kind of subjectmatterthatdefines a style ofProcedure
literature), and historical period. In terms of Representativenessof extracts. No single
market share, nonfiction should have com- brief extract can be fully representative of a
prised 84% of the sample (Simora, 1980), or 25 complete book, and it was necessary to deter-
items. But fiction is the primaryvehicle for lu-mine whether, despite their anonymity and
dic reading, and only 7 nonfiction items were brevity, the extracts remained valid as repre-
included, of which 4 were textbooks(Codes 53, sentatives of the books from which they were
83, 17, 23), and 3 (63, 77, 43) were narrative drawn. Accordingly,39 of the librarianswere
nonfiction (Wolfe, 1975). The fiction genres also asked to rank21 actualbooks (2 fiction ti-
represented were crime-and-violence (encom- tles were unavailablein multiple copies) in se-
passing such subgenresas espionage, sex-and- quence of likely frequency of issue. The
sadism, gun-for-hire,etc.), Western,romance, questionof how well a single extractcan repre-
humor, and detective. Variations in period, sent an entire book was furtherprobed by in-
with their changes in diction, were represented cluding two extracts from the same book,
by including 5 works that spanned the nine- Hailey's Money Changers. Item 55 describes
teenth century(14, 76, 20, 46, 11). the detectionof fraud, and Item 84 is a detailed
description of an act of torture. Though mark-
Dimensions. The principal dimensions of
edly dissimilar, both extracts are by the same
variance were literary merit, difficulty, and hand, and both relate to central themes in the
trancepotential, defined as readers'perception novel.
of the powerof a book to carrythem off to other
worlds. For each of the three dimensions, the Preferencerankings. The 30-item Reading
poles at either extreme were well represented, Preference Test was presentedto the students
and a conscientiouseffort was made to provide and critics with the following instruction:
moderate variability across the midrange 20
items, to emulate the variability range from Imagineyouhavejustcomehomeaftera long
which library users customarilymake their se- and difficultday.Youhavean houror so free
lections. beforesupper.There'snothingyouwouldrather
do thancurlup witha goodbook, havea good
read- andforgetyourtroubles.
Fromthe pack, choosethe book you would Difficultyrankings.This task was presented
mostliketo relaxwith-andthebookyouwould to the 21 branch library assistants as follows:
leastlike to relaxwith.Thenarrangethe other
pagesin theorderof yourpreference. The 30 extractsyou havein frontof you vary
considerably in difficulty.Someareveryeasyto
To make the task easier, a methodadaptedfrom read,andothersareveryhard.Pleasesortthese
the Q-sort (Stephenson, 1967) was used: As extractsintoa difficultyorder,so thattheeasiest
noted in Study 1, subjects were asked first to areon topandthemostdifficultatthebottom.
sort the extracts into four categories, and then
to rankthe extractsin each category. This two- Readabilityscores. Readabilityscores were
stage ranking procedure was used for all the computedby a formulameasureand by a cloze
rankingtasks describedbelow. procedurefor each of the 30 extracts. The for-
For the librarians, the task was framed in mula used in the presentstudy is the Fog Index
terms of frequency of issue ("the most likely (Gunning, 1952). The Fog Index is based on
borrowerdemandfor each of these books").Be- sentence and word length (in order to identify
cause of their place in the social value system, the kind of writing that "fogs understanding":
librarians'judgmentsof borrowerbehaviorwere Gunning, 1964, p. 2-2), and it correlates well
regardedas more interestingthantheir personal with other formulameasures. Fog Index scores
preferences. It must be noted that this is not a were calculatedas the mean of scores on the two
projective test, because taste at variance with contiguous 100-wordpassages in each extract.
one's own can readily be attributedto the bor- For the cloze procedure (Taylor,1953), the 13
rowing public ("I can't stand Westerns,but the subjects were aged between 25 and 45; all had
kids take out nothingelse"). completed 12 years of schooling, and 9 of the
13 had university degrees or diplomas. Seven
Merit rankings. This task was given after were male, and 6 female. Six of these subjects
the preferencerankingshad been completedand also completed preference rankings; 3 were
the five nonfiction items (63, 53, 83, 17, 23) men and 3 women, and 5 of the 6 were univer-
had been removed from the pack. Instructions sity graduates. Cloze materials were prepared
to the students were as follows: by leaving intact the first five lines of each of
the 30 extracts, and deleting the fifth word of
Theliteraryqualityof the25 extractsin frontof the first new sentence
commencing on or after
youvariesconsiderably. Someareof thehighest
the sixth and each fifth word thereafter,
literaryquality,and othersare absolutetrash. line,
Yourtaskis to sortthese25 extractsintoa merit until a total of 20 words had been deleted.
sequence, withthoseof thehighestmerit on top
andthe trashiesttrashat the bottomof the pile
youmake.
For the librarians, the task was again framedin
terms of professionalratherthan personaljudg- Results and Discussion
ments:
Books and extracts
Popularfictionis notnecessarilygoodfiction- Table 4 shows that for the librarianswho
andmostlibrarians feelthatit is partof theirjob sorted both books and extractsinto
to lead adultreadersawayfromtrashand to- likely issue
frequency sequence, the extracts were indeed
wardsthe enjoymentof good books.Now sup-
valid representativesof the books from which
poseyouweregiventheopportunity of shelving
thebooksin thefictionsectionof yourlibraryin they were drawn, in that the popularitypredic-
a gradedsequence,leadingreadersfrom the tions made by sampling the brief 20-line ex-
trashiestbooks("rubbish")... to progressively tracts were significantly correlated with those
moreworthwhilefictionuntilthey were ready made in the presence of the copious extrinsic
... to enjoygoodliterature. cues providedby the book's cover design, title,
aNumberof itemscompared. p.
bTwo-tailed
Subjects n Itemsa W X2
PREFERENCE
RANKINGS
Students
All students 129 30 .29 1067.7
UniversityFemaleEnglish 34 30 .39 389.4
UniversityFemaleAfrikaans 10 30 .42 124.1
UniversityMale English 14 30 .30 122.4
UniversityMale Afrikaans 5 30 .50 86.2
TechnicalCollege FemaleEnglish 3 30 .65 56.5**
TechnicalCollege Male English 36 30 .39 407.8
TechnicalCollege Male Afrikaans 19 30 .33 184.0
Universitystudentsin 1976 27 30 .35 277.5
Universitystudentsin 1978 27 30 .36 284.8
Librarians
Rankingof extracts 44 30 .52 670.2
Rankingof extracts 21 30 .54 334.0
Rankingof books 21 21 .73 295.5
Rankingof books 10 18 .89 151.2
Literary critics
UNISA Englishlecturers 11 30 .58 187.91
MERIT RANKINGS
UNISA Englishlecturers 10 25 .52 126.16
Englishstudents 27 25 .63 411.04
Professionallibrarians 23 25 .40 221.96
Branchlibraryassistants 21 22 .34 150.95
aNumberof itemsranked.
*All X2valuessignificantatp < .001, except **p < .01.
author,and publisher.(On the role of the cover Thoughthe limitedcultural diversityof the
in establishinga book'stone andmarket,see Pe- subject samples precludedtesting of the broad,
tersen, 1975.) cross-culturalform of the ludic continuumhy-
pothesis, the marked differences in language
Within- and across-group ranking patterns and values between the studentsubgroups, and
Table 5 gives Kendall'scoefficient of con- between these and the librarians,do allow ex-
cordance (W) for merit and preferencerankings aminationof ludic agreement across taste cul-
by the three subjectsgroups and the subgroups. tures. Table 6 shows that there is wide
Though some absolutevalues of W are low, in- agreement about what constitutes a good read
dicating considerableintragrouprankingvaria- across language, gender, and career choice dif-
bility, all except one are significant at the .001 ferences. This is especically striking in the
level of probability,indicatingthat group mem- higher correlationsbetween the predominantly
bers'rankingsare in strikingagreement. English-speakingstudents from Port Elizabeth
University TechnicalCollege
All students 129 .50** .37** .86*** .83*** .81*** .88** .92***
Universitystudents
Female
English 34 .81*** .50** .23 .56** .18 .27
Afrikaans 10 .45* .18 .49** .08 .19
Male
English 14 .76*** .60*** .74*** .75***
Afrikaans 5 .54** .87*** .84***
Tech. college students
Female
English 3 .61*** .78***
Male
English 36 .92***
Afrikaans 19
STUDENTS
1 8.81 6.9 1 1.1 - 98 WilburSmith Warand love
and the Pretoria librarians, who, as we have Preference ranking and preference clusters
noted, are a conservative, Afrikaans-speaking Tables7a and 7b give the mean rankorder
group. There are also some striking nonagree- assigned to each of the 30 extractsby students
ments. The two groups of universitywomen are and librarians in rank order sequence. The
especially idiosyncratic, agreeing with one an- genre categories in the table are self-explana-
other'schoices but not with the universityAfri- tory, except perhapsfor humandrama and hu-
kaansmales or with any of the technicalcollege man nature. By the formeris meanta character
males. Both these female groups agree more study which is carried by a strong narrative
stronglywith the technicalcollege females than line, allowingthe workto be readon two levels,
with the university English males, suggesting as an adventureand as a study of behavior. In
that gender differences may override language the latter,however,the focus is on characterit-
and value differences. self ratherthan on narrative,so that the story-
LIBRARIANS
1 6.3 4.7 1 1.1 2.2 13 Gavin Lyall Crime and violence
2 7.2 5.3 98 WilburSmith Warand love
3 7.9 5.0 51 PeterO'Donnel Crime and violence
4 8.2 7.2 16 Denise Robins Romance
5 8.5 6.3 30 AgathaChristie Detective
seeking readeris soon disappointed. are 1.1, 1.5, 2.6, and 5.1; and for the librari-
Reference to the mean rank column indi- ans, they are 1.1, 2.1, 2.0, and 3.5. For both
cates that the progressionfrom one rank to the groups, these steps are unambiguously larger
next is uneven: In some cases the difference is than the other rank-to-rankincrements in that
as little as 0.03, and in other cases as much as section of the rankorderin which they occur.
5.1 (see Ranks 12-13 and 26-27 in Table 7a). Among the students, the 18 extractsin the
By observing where the relatively larger steps first and second clusters include all the best-
from rank to rank occur, it is possible to sepa- sellers and genre works, and two twentieth-cen-
rate the 30 extractsinto rank clusters; the step tury classics. There is then a sharp step of 1.5
to next column indicates by how much the down to the next cluster, which takes in all the
mean rank is incrementedbetween that cluster nineteenth-century fiction, together with the
and the next. For the students,these increments near-classics, Bellow and Barnes. Narrative
nonfiction is well separated from this "heavy deviation on their rankingof this passage (7.0)
fiction"cluster by a step of 1.6: Despite Ogil- is almost identicalto that for the fraudpassage
vie's racy style and the bestseller performance (7.1). For the students,however,more ambiva-
of his Confessions, he is lumped together with lence attachedto the rankingof the torturepas-
Fessler's China. The largest step down (5.1) is sage (SD = 8.1) than the rankingof the fraud
to the textbook nonfiction, of which the con- passage (SD = 6.6), possibly reflecting the
crete material(anatomyand productioncontrol) moral conflict readersmay have felt about en-
appears to have been marginallymore accept- joying the reprehensible.
able to readers than the abstract (psychology In summary,the data show impressivesta-
and philosophy). bility of choice patternsacross importantmod-
Among the librarians, the nonfiction erator variables-age, gender, home language,
choice pattern(Ranks27 to 30) exactly follows and value system. But because of the limited
that of the students, and is indeed considerably cultural and linguistic diversity of the sample,
clearer, with a step of 0.9 separatingthe con- no conclusions can be drawn about the wider,
crete from the abstract.The narrativenonfiction cross-culturalstabilityof the ludic continuum.
fares equally badly, and above these, the clas-
sics now form a clear cluster,though, incongru- Merit, difficulty, and readability rankings
ously, Gordon's racy seafaring humor falls The availability of preference, merit, and
among these. It is strikingthat of the 16 items difficulty rankingsfor the same 30 extractsby a
falling into the librarians'first two clusters, all variety of different subject groups, in addition
except one are the same as the students'first 16 to two sets of readabilityscores, allows us to ad-
choices. dress questions about the impact of the social
The rankclusteringsuggests that, in select- value system (and especially the Protestant
ing reading matter,readersmay not attemptto ethic) on readers'perceptionsof literarymerit,
differentiatebetween all items in a bookshopor and the ways in which such meritjudgmentsare
library array,but instead may assign books to related to preferences, on the one hand, and
discrete classes of desirability, such that the perceiveddifficulty,on the other.
members of each class are largely undifferenti-
ated, whereas classes are clearly distinct from Intrinsicand extrinsicmerit criteria. Table
one another.It may be that clustering is essen- 5 shows thatmerit rankingshad high intragroup
tially dichotomous, separating books that are consistency (p < .01 for all Wvalues), and Ta-
desirable for leisure reading (here, the first 16 ble 8 shows that both professional critics and
to 18 items) from those that are undesirable- lay readers(studentsand librarians)rankedthe
namely, all or nearly all the classics, some of 25 fiction and near-fictionitems in significantly
the narrative nonfiction, and all the didactic similar merit sequences. This homogeneity
nonfiction. seems to mean that all groups shareda common
Table 7 shows that the student sample set of literary value judgments, and that the
ranked the two passages from The Money ability of the critics to distinguish good litera-
Changers(Items 55 and 85) within three places ture from trashis not an arcanegift, the product
of one another,whereasthe librarians,with the of their heightened sensitivity to textual quali-
clarity of vision given to those who judge others ties, but rather,an ability as universalas know-
ratherthan themselves, found the two passages ing the difference between a good story and a
to be virtually equivalent, placing the torture bad one. However,such a subversivededuction
extractin the 6th position, and the fraudextract might be incorrect. Groups such as the branch
7th. These near-equivalencessupportthe view library assistants who had only a high school
that brief extracts can reliably represent the education, for whom English was a second lan-
books from which they are taken. Also interest- guage, would have had very little exposure to
ing is the unanimityamongstlibrariansthat the the English classics or to elite style. If they and
torturepassage would be popular:The standard similar groups were, nonetheless, able to carry
of itemscompared. bForthelibrarians,
aNumber thiswasanissuefrequency
ranking.
out merit rankings that matched those of the difficulty. The Protestantethic teaches that pain
critics (albeit at relativelylow rho values), they and virtue are constantcompanions, and there
may have drawnon a more accessible criterion are strong positive correlations between merit
thanthe complex and abstractconstructof liter- and difficulty rankings carried out by the
ary merit. A likely substitutecriterionmight be branchlibraryassistantswith only a high school
Table 11 Extractsrankedfrom most to least readableby the cloze measureand the Fog Index
"*Tiedranks
other task periods were compared. Stimulus tive task periods (K, L, M, Q), will be deter-
equivalence-the experience of ludic reading- mined by the outcome of competing and
was therefore achieved by having each reader simultaneous response tendencies. Decelera-
select a book, following the selection procedure tion (the bradycardia of attention: Lacey &
that was described in Study 2. Experimental Lacey, 1978, p. 99) accompaniesthe detection
aesthetics predicts that raised, fluctuating of external stimuli, whereas acceleration oc-
arousalwill be associatedwith perceivedpleas- curs during cognitive processing and respond-
urableness. In this context it is importantto re- ing (Lacey, 1967). The accelerative tendency
call the evidence produced in Study 2 that will be augmented if the reading content in-
readersfound ludic readingin the laboratoryto cludes action-instigatingcues (Lang, 1979). If
be functionally equivalent to ludic reading un- ludic reading is dominatedby cognitive proc-
der naturalconditions. essing, acceleration will ensue; if it is con-
Period J. Subjects were given the follow- cerned more with stimulus detection, as if the
ing instructionat the outset of this 5-minuteper- page were the world, decelerationwill win out.
iod of eyes-shut relaxation: "Lay the book For the other cognitive tasks, accelerationcan
aside, close your eyes, and relax completely for be anticipated in hard reading and mental
5 minutes. Go to sleep or stay awake, just as arithmetic (K and M), and deceleration in the
you please."This task was designed to emulate visual tasks (L and Q). In the passive, nonpro-
the transitionfrom ludic readingto sleep; both cessing periods (F, G, H, and J), decelerationis
arousaland its lability were expected to drop to to be expected. It should be noted that heart
baseline levels or lower. period-mean beat-to-beatinterval in a speci-
Next came a set of four cognitive tasks, fied time period-is an imperfect reciprocalof
throughwhich it was hoped to determinewhich heart rate, which may remain relatively con-
kinds of mentalactivity elicited reading-likere- stant though period varies markedly (Hesle-
sponses, and which did not. Period K was a 3- grave, Ogilvie, & Furedy, 1979).
minute work reading task, using a cognitive
psychology text (Fodor's The Language of Digitization, score conversion, and
Thought, 1975). Subjectswere told they would data analysis
be asked at the end of the session to sum up the The tape-recordedanalog data were digi-
content of what they had read. In Period L, tized at a sampling frequency of 1,024 hertz,
subjects looked at a series of affectively neutral generating2,905 megabytesof raw data, which
photographsfor 2 minutes, and Period M con- were converted to 7 standard-unit scores per
sisted of 6 mentalarithmetictasks of increasing 10-second epoch for each of the 33 subjects.
complexity, with covert responding. In Period Standardization was achieved by referencing
Q, subjects were asked to perform 3 different area-under-curvescores (EMG and SPR) to a
visualizing tasks for a total of 90 seconds. calibrationsignal, so that scores for all 33 sub-
It was anticipatedthat arousal duringhard jects were comparable. Using these scores,
reading (Period K) and mental arithmetic (M) arousal and variability levels were calculated
would be higher than during ludic reading, for each subject separatelyand for all subjects
which is response-freeand subjectively effort- pooled for each of the 7 variables and for 8 of
less. Because one of the visualizing tasks in- the 9 task periods (L was omitted). For the
volved computation(e.g., "Whena red apple is pooled scores, mean standarddeviations were
cut in half and halved again, how many sides computed as an index of response lability, and
will be red and how manywhite?"),it was antic- are henceforthreferredto as variability scores
ipated that arousal in this period would be at (VS).
about the same level as during mental Determining which tasks differed signifi-
arithmetic(PeriodM). cantly from the criterionperiod of ludic reading
The course of cardiac responding, during called for multiple comparisonswith the crite-
ludic reading and during the four other cogni- rion. The methodological problems associated
F G H I J K M Q
Relaxing Boredom Boredom Ludic Relaxing Work Math Visual
Reading Reading Tasks Tasks
Variable (30) (60) (90) (180) (30) (18) (4) (8)
EMGI1(n = 32)
M 214,765 296,187 304,716 314,220 212,823 310,443 244,998 251,061
VS 30,450 56,706 54,919 56,021 32,713 61,049 32,819 33,931
EMG2 (n = 32)
M 8,716.07 9,546.37 9,832.57 10,357.70 8,943.57 9,920.67 9,963.23 9,234.99
VS 1,318.94 2,298.18 2,547.06 5,472.58 1,869.39 3,822.75 1,630.29 1,560.74
EMG3 (n = 32)
M 189,081 201,978 207,082 210,498 177,669 211,639 182,759 174,767
VS 21,396 31,837 36,373 37,710 29,232 28,788 26,202 20,249
RR (n = 31)
M 2.8863 2.8772 2.8288 2.9491 2.7638 2.9768 2.9764 2.8825
VS 0.1587 0.2008 0.1324 0.1270 0.1035 0.1835 0.2656 0.1916
SPR (n = 26)
M 14,530.2 15,453.7 15,572.3 22,071.7 15,456.0 20,474.6 19,574.6 14,721.4
VS 7,151.9 6,438.9 6,744.5 10,510.1 3,669.2 7,956.3 5,256.5 4,458.2
HR (n = 29)
M 12.1325 11.6663 11.5398 11.8585 11.8680 12.3853 12.7436 12.3619
VS 0.2380 0.1425 0.2597 0.1626 0.1841 0.4361 0.2678 0.2050
HP (n = 29)
M 0.8767 0.8748 0.8939 0.8639 0.8667 0.8400 0.8019 0.8281
VS 0.0290 0.0221 0.0964 0.0866 0.0232 0.2221 0.0171 0.0165
aNumber
inparentheses
indicates of taskperiodin 30-secondepochs.
duration
with this repeated-measuresdesign (Abt, 1979) ing (I). A huge quantityof data- 1.395 million
were addressed by employing Dunnett'st test data points per row-has been consolidated in
for multiple comparisonsonly if there was sig- each plot unit of Figure 5.
nificant variance for all treatments (i.e., task
Arousal trends
periods) combined(Winer, 1971).
The most striking feature of the trends
thrown into relief by Figure 5 is that although
ludic reading (I) is experienced as effortless
Resultsand Discussion
(Study 5) and describedas "relaxed,"it is on the
contrary physiologically more aroused and
Graphic displays of individual subject re- more labile than baseline responding. Though
sponding on the 7 variables across the 8 task counterintuitive,this finding accords with the
periods were not helpful in demonstratingre- predictionsof experimentalaesthetics. The sec-
sponse trends. However, response means and ond strikingfeatureis the predicteddeactivation
variability scores for each of the 8 periods for that sets in immediately when subjects stop
all 33 subjects pooled did yield interpretable readingand close their eyes (J). The delights of
results. These are given in standardscore units bedtimereadingmay in partbe attributedto this
in Table 14, and are plotted in Figure 5. In this precipitous fall in arousal, not only in skeletal
plot, points overlaidby squaresare significantly muscle but also in skin potential, controlledby
differentfrom the criterionperiod of ludic read- the autonomicnervous system: Berlyne (1971)
Figure 5
Means and variabilityscores for all subjects
pooled on seven physiological variablesacross
eight task periods in standardscore units
(SquaresindicatesignificantDunnett'st values)
TREATMENT
VARIABLE
NUMBER
AND NAME (N) F I J K M O
EMG17.5
MUSCLE ACTIVITY 25 5.0
ON
FOREHEAD
(32)
EMG2
MUSCLE ACTIVITY 90
i 711- 5,0
AT
CORNER OFMOUTH
(32)
EMG3
MUSCLE ACTIVITY
UNDER
CHIN
(32) 12,
RR
RESPIRATION 290
15
RATE
(31)
285
SPR
25...75
SKIN POTENTIAL 20 5.0
RESPONSE
(26)
12.5 40
HEART RATE30
(29)
"HP
o?,' 75
HEART PERIOD 85,0 50
(29)
82,5 -1LMEA25 25(?.
On 5 of the 6 measures (the exception was four sections, some fantasy process analogs of
skin potential response), mean respondingwas readingtranceare considered.
elevatedduringthe readingof most-likedpages.
Response lability was lower on 4 of the 6 varia- Dreaming and reading
bles, and higher for EMG2 (muscle activity at In Hildebrandt's1875 book about dreams,
the corner of the mouth) and for heart rate. which Freud cites with approval (1900/1968,
However,thoughthe trendis clear, only 1 of the pp. 9, 67), he writes that when we fall asleep,
12 differences reached statistical significance, our whole being, with all its forms of existence,
namely, the decreased lability of EMG3, the "disappears, as it were, through an invisible
platysmamuscle, t(29) = 4.01, p < .01. trapdoor."This is also the experience of the lu-
The trend of the means suggests that dic reader,who sinks "throughclamorouspages
heightenedphysiological arousal contributesto into soundless dreams" (Gass, 1972, p. 27).
the perceived pleasurablenessof most-enjoyed Clearly, dreaming-and especially daydream-
reading, as predicted by experimentalaesthet- ing-is in certain ways an analog of reading.
ics. The increased lability on EMG2 suggests The dreamerknowsthat even if his dreamshave
that facial expressiveness not only increases not come from anotherworld, they "atall events
during most-enjoyedreading, but is also more carried him off into another world" (Freud,
variable. However,the failureof responselabil- 1900/1968, p. 7). Moreover, reading and
ity on 4 of the 6 measuresto increaseas hedonic dreaming share a cognitive passivity, because
tone rises is countertheoretical. the work they do is subjectivelyeffortless.
The increase in heart rate during the read- Freud'smost importantstatementaboutthe
of
ing most-liked pages suggests that cognitive psychology of literarycreationand of readingis
processing takes precedence over stimulus de- TheRelationof the Poet to Daydreaming(1908/
tection in this period, though the large increase 1957); here, "poet"means "theless pretentious
in heart rate lability indicates that competing writers of romances, novels and stories, who
decelerative responses, which are associated are read all the same by the widest circles of
with the orienting response, are markedduring men and women"(p. 179). The task Freud sets
most-enjoyedreading. himself in this essay is to understand"thesecret
of popularityin art,"namely, how "thatstrange
being, the poet, is able to carry us with him in
STUDY 5 such a way and to rouse emotions in us of which
we thoughtourselvesperhapsnot even capable."
The Sovereigntyof the Reading The writer'sskill, concludes Freud, lies in over-
Experience coming the feeling of repulsiondaydreamshave
for others by disguises and aestheticbribes, "in
Little in the study of consciousness is as order to release yet greater pleasure arising
strikingas the economy of means and precision from deeper sources in the mind . .. puttingus
of outcome with which skilled readersare able in a position where we can enjoy our own day-
to exercise absolutecontrolover the contentand dreams without reproachor shame"(pp. 183-
qualityof their own consciousness. In the last of 184). The author's stratagems, adds Holt
these five studies, a phenomenology of ludic (1961), "enable us to obtain vicariously the
readingis derived from the literatureon dream- deeper pleasureof daydreaming"(p. 21).
ing, fantasy, and trance, and ludic readers'ac- The effortlessness of ludic reading is well
counts of the sovereigntyconferredon them by accounted for by analogy to Klinger's (1971)
their reading are considered in the light of this suggestion that fantasysegments are linked in a
phenomenology. In addition, quantitativedata respondentchain, "elicitedratherthan emitted,
derived from responses to questionnaireitems controlledby antecedentevents ratherthanrein-
and personality tests are analyzed. In the next
forcementsat their termination,and entail rela- a flower arrangementseen under the influence
tively little sense of effort"(p. 351). of mescaline:
However, reading is not dreaming: The
reader's volitional ability is unimpaired, and I was notlookingnowat an unusualflowerar-
both the formalcharacteristicsof primaryproc- rangement.I was seeingwhatAdamhad seen
ess thought (Rapaport, 1951) and the four on the morningof his creation-the miracle,
momentby moment,of nakedexistence. . a
mechanismsof the dream-work(condensation, bunchof flowersshiningwith theirown inner
displacement, representability,and secondary lightandall butquiveringunderthepressureof
elaboration:Freud, 1900/1968) are absent. Un- the significancewith whichtheywerecharged
like dreams, which may become so threatening (1954/1960,p. 17).
that they lead to depersonalization (Shapiro,
1978), readersterminatebook fantasyby lifting Finally, relatingtranceto personalitystructure,
their eyes from the page, at which the book Tellegenand Atkinsonarguethatthe state of in-
ceases to exist. In this sense, unlike real dream- tensely focused attentionarises from an absorp-
ing, reading guarantees the dreams of power tion trait, of which the motivationalcomponent
and invulnerability every reader would most is "a desire and a readiness for object relation-
like to have. ships, temporaryor lasting, that permit experi-
ences of deep involvement"(p. 275). Individual
Hypnosis variations among readers are thus accommo-
Hypnosis offers more useful parallels with dated, because all who can read well enough
reading trance. In both hypnosis and reading, will experience absorption,but not all readers
the subject maintains a continued, limited will have the "desireand readiness"for the real-
awareness that what is perceived as real is in ity-changing experience of total attentional
some sense not real (Hilgard, 1979): The en- commitment.
tranced reader,howeverdeep the involvement,
never feels threatenedby book material in the Imagery in ludic reading
way that the dreameris threatenedby a night- Is vivid imagery a prerequisite for ludic
mare (Fromm, 1977). Moreover, hypnotic reading?There are some indicationsthat it is,
trance (like reading trance) is mediated by in- such as the correlationthat has been found be-
tense, focused attention "during which the tween a subject'slack of vivid imagery and in-
availablerepresentationalapparatusseems to be susceptibility to hypnosis (Hilgard, 1979;
entirelydedicatedto experiencingand modeling Perry, 1973), suggesting that nonimagingread-
the attentional object," write Tellegen and ers are unlikely to be involved readers. Also,
Atkinson (1974, p. 274). They argue that this sinking throughthe page into the world of the
attentionalstatehas three majormanifestations, book might be difficult if the world into which
each of which parallels aspects of reading one is sinking is misty and ill-defined. On the
trance. The first is a heightenedsense of the re- other hand, consciousness is not a picture gal-
ality of the attentionalobject; the second is that lery (Huey, 1908), and charactersin fiction are
the full commitment of attention renders the "mostly empty canvas" (Gass, 1972, p. 45).
subject imperviousto distraction;and the third The issue is clarifiedby Kosslyn's(1981) paral-
is that the vivid subjective reality experienced lel race theory of imagery,which suggests that
during episodes of absorbed attention has the well-practiced propositional material is ac-
effect of transfiguringboth the observerand the cessed more rapidlyand more easily than imag-
attentional object, which acquires "an impor- inal material.Accordingly,imagerywould only
tance and intimacy normally reserved for the be used when propositional information was
self' (p. 275). This formulationsuggests paral- lacking, as for example in answeringthe ques-
lels between the ludic reader'sabsorptionand tion "Are a hamster'sears round or pointed?"
the otherness of alternate states of conscious- Because images are short-termmemory struc-
ness (Zinberg, 1977), as in Huxley'saccountof tures, fade rapidly,and are difficult to maintain
(Kosslyn, 1981), it seems that image look-up readers about their lifestyles and their reading
will seldom form partof ludic reading,which is habits will reflect the use of reading(thoughnot
response-free and often of highly stereotyped necessarily any awarenessof such use) as either
and overlearnedmaterials,and thereforereadily a block to self-awarenessor an enhancerof it. A
accessible in propositionalform. second hypothesis is that ludic readers will
prize ludic reading'seffortlessness, and the con-
The uses of reading trol they are able to exercise over the pace of
Readers may use the absolute control over their reading (as shown by Study 2), over its
fantasy processes ludic reading gives them in content, and over its safety. (One reason for
order to dull consciousness or to heighten it. A reading'ssafety is that readers have learned to
person's current concerns potentiate fantasy avoid reading matter that touches on non-neu-
content (Klinger, 1971), so that ongoing day- tralizedpersonalconcerns.) Third, it is hypoth-
dreamsmay reflect recenttriumphs,anticipated esized that readers will report greater use of
disasters, or incapacitatinganxieties. Singer's propositionalthan of imaginalstrategiesduring
(1976) factor-analytic study of daydreaming ludic reading.
types indicates that the concerns which color
fantasy are moderately stable, which in turn
suggests that a ludic reader'scurrent concerns Method
may determinethe use he or she characteristi-
cally makes of reading (though these bounda- Subjects
ries between types of readerare permeableand Subjects were the 33 ludic readers de-
changeable). Thus, readers with negatively scribed in Study 2. Four especially articulate
toned current concerns, analogous to the day- members of this group, to whom fictitious
dreamingtypes Singer (1976) identifiedas anx- names have been given, were invited to partici-
ious-distractibleand guilty, may be especially pate in a group discussion aboutthe readingex-
threatenedby periods of empty consciousness perience. They were OckertOlivier, 45, a clerk
duringwhich fantasycolored by fears and anxi- (Subject 119); his daughter Sanette, 19, also
eties may develop (Blum & Green, 1978). They doing clerical work (Subject206); Mary, 35, a
may fortify themselves against this threat by businesswoman(Subject 230); and Wendy,52,
carrying a book with them wherever they go, a universitylecturer in library science (Subject
taking absurdly large quantitiesof books with 215). Two other members of the Olivier fam-
them on vacation, and organizing their lives to ily-the wife and an elder daughter-also par-
allow for a great deal of consciousness-control- ticipated as subjects, and each member of this
ling busyness. extraordinarygroup reads a great deal: Ockert
Readerswith pleasantlytoned currentcon- (whose laboratory reading speed was 350
cerns, and fantasythat recycles enjoyableexpe- WPM) claimed30 books a month;his wife (316
riences, are on the contrary likely to use WPM), 25 a month; Sanette (465 WPM), 18 a
readingas a consciousness-heighteningactivity, month;and her elder sister (921 WPM) said she
for example by self-explorationthrough awak- reads 28 books a month. In the intakeinterview,
ened memories and aspirations,or by deep in- the sister remarkedthat their home is bursting
volvement with the book's characters and with books, and when you step through the
situations (Hilgard, 1979). In line with door, "it'sas if a reading fever suddenly grabs
Hilgard's (1979) findings, it seems likely that hold of you." This virus has deliberately been
such involved readers would have higher hyp- propagatedby the parents, who have socialized
notic susceptibilitythan those who use reading their childrento become heavy readers.
to block self-awareness. Mary claims that she reads 25 books a
Thus, the first hypothesis that emerges month, works 13 hours a day, is in bed by 8,
from the literatureand from the findings of the and reads for 2 hours before falling asleep.
previous studies is that the self-reportsof ludic Weekends, she brings home 6 feature-length
movies and 4 shorts, which she watcheson Sat- mechanics of readingdrops away: "Youget the
urdays and Sundays with her two young chil- feeling you'renot reading any more, you'renot
dren. Her holiday routine takes in 3 feature reading sentences, it's as if you are completely
movies a day and some window shopping. living inside the situation."Centralto Ockert's
Wendy,by contrast, says she reads only 4 or 5 interestin readingwell is his need to readfast so
books a month and often becomes deeply in- that he can forget fast. During the intake inter-
volved in her reading. view, he remarked,
Materials The moreI enjoya book,thequickerI wantto
Items in the Reading Habits Questionnaire forgetit so thatI canreadit again.LikeFallon
(described in Study 1) and the Reading Mood [LouisL'Amour], forexample:I'vealreadyread
Questionnaire(Study2), togetherwith the tran- it 10 times, and I enjoy it almostexactlythe
scribed 2-hour tape recordingof the group dis- sameeachtime.I readit as quicklyas I can,just
to getthestory.Somepeoplecantellyouexactly
cussion aboutreading,yielded the thematicand whattheyreada yearor twoyearslater.I tryto
quantitativedatareviewedbelow. forgetbecausethereareso fewbooksthatreally
In orderto determinewhetherpersons who giveyouthepleasureof reading.
read a greatdeal for pleasuredeviateas a group
from populationnorms on commonly measured Ockert is the model for a gluttonous reader, a
dimensions of personality, I administeredtwo text gobbler who swallows books whole,
inventories: the Sixteen Personality Factor achieving that pinnacle of gluttonous security,
Questionnaire (16PF: Cattell, Eber, & Tat- the ability to eat the same dish endlessly, pass-
suoka, 1970), and the Eysenck Personality In- ing it through his system whole and miracu-
ventory (EPI: Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964). For lously wholesome, ready to be re-eaten again
the 16PF, well-validated South African norms and again. The myth of the cornucopia,the in-
are available, but not for the EPI, for which exhaustible horn of plenty which Zeus pre-
the British norms provided by Eysenck and sented to Amalthea, is here literally achieved:
Eysenck (1964) were used. The book is an endless supply of nourishment.
Control
Results and Discussion In responseto an item in the ReadingMood
Questionnaireaboutbooks and movies, Ockert
writes,
The thematic ordering of the self-report
material in the following eight sections allows I can reada bookat my ownpace;I canput it
the hypothesesabout readers'needs and gratifi- downwheneverI like, andI canalwaysgo back
cations to be evaluated.It is also useful because to it. A moviecan'tbe switchedoff-same with
self-reports by introspectiveludic readers are TV-but perhapsthe most importantof all, I
rarein the researchliterature(Hilgard, 1979, is can'treplaythe enjoyableparts,or see it at my
a notableexception). pace.
Reading ability and reading gluttony Responding to the same question, his elder
Youhave to be able to read well in orderto daughter(Subject220) writes,
enjoy Louis L'Amour,argues Ockert, and to I finda totallydifferenttypeof enjoymentfrom
those who say it's not good reading matter,he booksthanfrommovies. . . . I savorthe con-
replies that they probably can't read well textof thebookandcanalwaysgo backandread
enough to enjoy it, thatthey are still at the stage it again,whichyoucan'tdo withmoviesor TV
of decoding letter-by-letter like children in programs.
school. The markof the absorbedreaderwho is
really enjoying readingis that awarenessof the And subject 101 responds,
I don't really enjoy movies-I feel I'm a captive miles aroundtheirhomes.That'sall his world
audience; if I get bored I feel compelled to stay consistsof. He can get no escapism. . . he's
to the end, as I've paid. ... The books one justbusywithhimselfall day.If I hadto be oc-
reads provide a pleasurethat is entirely at one's cupiedwithmyselfall dayI'dgo mad,crazy.I'd
beck-and-call. You read, stop .. . as the mood say our readingis like SigmundFreudsaid,
takes you. "Dreams arethemeanswherebywe compensate
for the harshnessof reality."
Youcan say "read-
Escapism ing"insteadof "dreams."
In responding to questionnaire items about
Of the ludic readers, 29 replied to the
reading pleasure, many subjects wrote about es- Frustration Index question about discovering,
capism (which, in turn, is often synonymous in a strangehotel, that one had nothing to read
with the blocking of self-awareness). Some of
these responses have a quality of pathos, de- (reportedin Study 1). Of the 29, 12 felt mild
emotion, using adverbs such as "frustrated,"
scribing a blighted life in which reading is an
island of delight. "restless,"or "annoyed,"and 9 were angry or
disappointed.But the other 8 readersdescribed
intense emotion, using terms such as "desolate,"
Reading removes me for a considerable time
from the petty and seemingly unrewardingirri- "dispossessed,""lostand miserable,"or "desper-
tations of living: I did not choose to be born, ate," which bring to mind the description
and cannot say (in all honesty) that I get 100% Bowlby (1973) offers of the separationanxiety
enjoymentfrom life. So, for the few hoursa day of early childhood. One may speculate that
I read"trash,"I escape the cares of those around these terms reflect the
intensity of the need
me, as well as escaping my own cares and dis- some readersfeel to escape from ruminationto
satisfactions. This is a selfish attitude, which I and the desperationthey feel when this
can justify only by saying that it contributesin reading,
no small measure to what I
need is frustrated.
preserving sanity
have. I'm not so sure, then, that I read for "re-
Affect and fear control
ward"as much as for "escape"(Subject 101).
Reading can move attentional focus from
Sanette, too, writes that what one wants of self to environment(Carver& Scheier, 1981),
the book world is not an extension of one's own, thus changingthe content of consciousness and
but a world that is nonthreatening because it is mediatingmood changes. Subject221 writes,
quite different.
I often feel sorry for myself and a book can
A love story is so near real life. When I wantto change my mood very quickly . ... Books
escape, I don't want to escape into the same
make'me happy,books makeme cry-after a
world again . . . I want to escape into a fiction goodcryI feel a newperson.
world, a worldthat was.
For many subjects, fear is an especially salient
For Sanette and her family, the question of emotion, and one of the principaluses of ludic
whether the world is passing them by or, on the reading is to master fear by delicately control-
contrary, passing by everyone else is an unre- ling it, so that the readerexperiencesthe goose-
solved and painful issue. At intake, Ockert said flesh of fear but not its terror. Sanette uses a
that his family's reading is "a kind of disease. double-reading technique-first a quick pre-
view and then a slower rereading-to make sure
. passes us by."In the group discussion,
S.Life
however, he took the view that the life that does nothing will go "bump"on the page and startle
pass him by is not worth living: her: "Suddenlythe horse comes upon him and
he sees the otherman. . . . I alwaysgo back be-
Like Mary said abouther husband,I can'timag- cause then I know what to expect."Both she and
ine how people keep themselves busy fishing her fathertake a theatricaldelight in describing
and so on every weekend in a little world 60 how well they control their fear. Sanette says,
get my thoughts right, to get my images right, this question was 5.4% (SD = 9.0) for the
so I could see what was going on." Sanette re- most-enjoyedrecent book, 26.8% (SD = 40.7)
calls that she put the book down in orderto find for a book read with enjoymentbut under dis-
a picture of a flight of stairs, which she then tractingcircumstances,39.6% (SD = 51.5) for
turnedupside down and referredto as she was a recently read work book, and 67.2% (SD =
reading. 78.6) for failed pleasure reading ("a book you
These rather desperate remedies suggest found thoroughlydull, flat, and uninteresting,
that the detailed scene-setting in The Poseidon but thatyou nonethelessreadquitea chunkof"').
Adventuremay have imposed undue demands As shown by the low standard deviation
on these readers, who might have been happier (9.0), readerswere virtually unanimousin rat-
with less description. Indeed, Sanette had re-
ing concentrationeffort during ordinary ludic
marked earlier that Louis L'Amouris a great
reading at near zero; however, as Study 4
writer because he does not tell us that the hero shows, what is subjectively experienced as ef-
is riding through a dense forest and then give fortlessness is substantiallyaroused. It is also
descriptionsof the birds flying from branchto striking that reading enjoyment is compatible
branch and so on, but writes simply, "Sackett with considerableconcentrationeffort. Finally,
was ridingthroughthe forest,"so thatthe reader it should be noted that routine work reading is
may make of this whatever image he or she perceived as substantially less effortful than
chooses. She goes on to explain thatwith West- failed ludic reading, though the high standard
erns, because they are set in a landscapeshe has deviations around these means requirecaution
come to know well, it is the work of a moment in interpretation.
to see Indians rising up on the horizon, or
horsemen storming into a camp, and one does
Personality attributes of ludic readers
not need the author to do this work for you- Do people who read a great deal for plea-
indeed, if he or she does, it is unwelcome. sure share personality traits that distinguish
Imagery vividness, as ratedby readers in them as a group? Application of the Eysenck
self-reports, correlated at .35 (p < .05) with Personality Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen
the variability scores for muscle activity at the
corner of the mouth (EMG2), raising interest- Personality Factor Questionnaire to the 33 lu-
dic readers showed them to be introverts,with
ing questions about the role of facial expres- scores strikinglybelow the British norm on the
sions in imaginalactivity. Vividness of imageryEPI ExtraversionScale, reflecting negative an-
also correlated .47 (p < .001) with variability
swers to questions such as "Do you often long
scores for reading involvement, and correlated
for excitement?"or "Wouldyou do almost any-
at a value that approached significance (p <
thing for a dare?"This finding is confirmedby
.10) with activity of the foreheadfrontalismus-
cle (EMG1). These results, takentogether with loadings on three of the five 16PF scales (F-,
M +, and Q2+) associated with the second-or-
the self-report data reviewed above, indicate der introversionfactor.The strategiesintroverts
that imagerymay be an importantcontributorto use to reduce incoming stimulation(preferring
readingpleasure. their own companyor thatof old friendsand the
Attentional effort familiarto the novel: Gale, 1981, p. 184) have a
uses of formulaicfic-
A question in the prelaboratoryReading good fit with the possible
tion to give the reader dominion over exceed-
Mood Questionnaire(Study2) asked subjectsto
familiar landscapes. Thus, it is possible
rate a number of well-rememberedbooks for ingly
that avid readers prefer reading to doing be-
concentration effort, from 0% ("you concen-
as feel safer with the fa-
tratedeffortlessly")to 100% ("youhad to force cause, introverts,they
miliarand the readilycontrolledthanamong the
yourself to concentrateas hard as you could"). arousalevents of the real world.
Mean effort for the 25 subjects who answered unpredictable
APPENDIXES
Code
No. Source